BOU AVENUEGhost Rider Peak And Mount Hosmer
Mount Hosmer is a prominent mountain north of Fernie, British Columbia,
but its sub-peak, Ghost Rider Peak, is probably more celebrated in large
part due to the occasional appearance of a horse and rider on its
southern cliffs when the late day sun hits at just the right angle.
Despite the presence of a well-known approach trail starting from Hartley
Lake Road, there is surprisingly very little information about climbing
Ghost Rider Peak and virtually nothing about Mount Hosmer. Trevor
Helwig climbed Ghost Rider Peak with James Yearous in 2010, and he posted
a trip report on
clubtread.com. At the end of his report, he states that "it
looks quite possible to follow the ridge from Ghostrider peak to the
summit proper of Mt. Hosmer in an hour or two". Ever since I first
read his report, I have been eager to give the traverse a try.

An opportunity finally came up when Zosia Zgolak organized an ACC trip to
the Fernie area for 22-24 July 2016. She originally planned to do a
3-day backpack trip along Heiko's Trail which included bagging some peaks
along the way such as Three Sisters and 5-Star Summit. I initially
declined since I had already climbed most of the peaks she was proposing,
but after further discussions, we came up with a revised plan to turn the
weekend into a car camping trip.

Early on the morning of 22 July 2016, Zosia headed out to Fernie with
Jason Minski and Simon Rolland to hike Heiko's Trail as a one-way day
trip. Before going to the northern trailhead of Heiko's Trail, they
pitched their tents at nearby Hartley Lake forestry campground in order
to secure a place to sleep for the night. Because the access road
to Heiko's Trail was quite rough, they commenced their hike a few
kilometres short of the trailhead. During the day, a thunderstorm
prevented them from reaching the summit of Three Sisters, but they still
managed to claim 5-Star Summit and "6-Star Summit" (Fernie West Outlier
as named by Bob Spirko) before ending their hike at Island Lake Lodge.

Meanwhile, Marta Wojnarowska and I left Calgary at around suppertime, and
we arrived at Island Lake Lodge not too long after Zosia and the others
finished their hike. Everyone piled into my car, and we stopped
briefly in Fernie to get the hungry hikers some food (ironically, they
had a hard time getting just a glass of water let alone anything to eat
at luxurious Island Lake Lodge). We then drove to Hartley Lake
campground before retrieving Jason's vehicle just a little further up the
road. In spite of all the planning that went into organizing
everything, I still ended up leaving my Thermarest at home!
Luckily, I keep a small square section of an old blue foam sleeping pad
in my car, and between that and using my spare clothes as a makeshift
mattress, I managed to sleep fairly comfortably in my sleeping bag that
night.

On the morning of 23 July 2016, everyone got up reasonably early
to eat breakfast, and we then piled into my car to drive about a
kilometre down the road to the signed Mount Hosmer trailhead. To
get started, we hiked the steep but well-maintained trail up to a saddle
between Ghost Rider Peak and an unnamed outlier to the northwest.
We then continued up a short moderate section to reach a viewpoint
overlooking the town of Fernie. From here, the trail resumes a
steep grade up the north ridge of Ghost Rider Peak before ending at a
knob short of the main summit block. When we arrived at the knob,
we ran into a trio of local hikers who had passed us on the trail earlier
in the morning. While everyone seemed content for the moment to
stop at the knob, I was already eyeing the crux section on the main
summit block. Before reaching the base of the crux, there are two
somewhat exposed pinnacles that need to be climbed over or bypassed.
Simon and Zosia were not comfortable continuing past these pinnacles, and
they decided to turn around and look for an alternate route to Mount
Hosmer.

The crux is a 10-metre high crack with disturbingly loose holds in a
few places. I did not find climbing the crux to be technically
challenging, but the exposure can be a bit unnerving. While Helwig
rated the crux as "definitely class IV, if not V", I would rate it as a
hard Class 3, but that is just my amateur opinion. Marta and Jason
followed me up the crux without too much trouble, and soon after, we were
all standing on the summit of Ghost Rider Peak. In order to
continue to Mount Hosmer, we had to drop down to a gap separating Ghost
Rider Peak's main summit block from its slightly lower southeastern
outlier. Marta initially tried to follow the connecting ridge down,
but she soon reached a drop-off that was too steep to down-climb.
We were seemingly stuck until I spotted a south-facing gully that
appeared to be reasonable to descend. As it turned out, the most
troublesome section was near the bottom. The gully spills over the
entrance of a shallow cave, and the holds here are all down-sloping and
small or non-existent. This was definitely Class 4 terrain, and I
actually ended up jumping down the last metre onto a pile of scree at the
entrance to the cave. Jason followed suit and also jumped down this
same section, but Marta was reluctant to jump due to her history of knee
problems. I tried to give her some assistance, but she ended up
falling on me when I lost my footing on the scree at the cave entrance.
Marta scraped a finger in the process, but otherwise, she was none the
worse for wear. With all of us safely down the gully, we crossed
the aforementioned gap and hiked to the top of the southeastern outlier.
From there, we descended without too much trouble to the low point of the
connecting ridge to Mount Hosmer.

Hartley Lake campground is located
close to the Mount Hosmer trailhead.

In this view from the trail,
Ghost Rider Peak is partially shrouded by clouds.

The group approaches a striking crag
near the ridge crest.

The group hikes to a viewpoint
overlooking the town of Fernie in the distance.

Hartley Lake is visible from the
viewpoint.

The trail is steep again near the end.

The group ascends the last bit before
the end of trail. Ghost Rider Peak is momentarily hidden by
mist.

The mist lifts a bit to reveal the
summit block of Ghost Rider Peak.

A couple of pinnacles have to be
climbed over to reach the base of the summit block.

Marta and Jason are perched on top of
the two pinnacles beyond the knob at trail's end.

While waiting for Marta to catch up,
Jason checks out the impressive south-facing cliffs of Ghost Rider
Peak.

Here is a comprehensive view of the
entire traverse of Ghost Rider Peak from the knob at trail's end
(upper right) to the connecting ridge to Mount Hosmer (foreground).

While Marta, Jason and I were muddling about on Ghost Rider
Peak, Simon and Zosia retreated to near the viewpoint we had passed on
the way up. They spotted some flagging here and found a good trail
leading to scree slopes on the north side of Ghost Rider Peak.
Hiking off-trail, they managed to find their way up the connecting ridge
leading to Mount Hosmer, and in effect, they bypassed all the
difficulties on Ghost Rider Peak. Marta, Jason and I reunited with
Simon and Zosia on the connecting ridge, and together, we easily
proceeded to the summit of Mount Hosmer without any problems.

For our
return trip, we followed the route that Simon and Zosia used to bypass
Ghost Rider Peak. We returned to the connecting ridge and descended
into the cirque below. From there, we traversed scree slopes until
we gained the flagged trail which led us back to the main trail. At
this junction, I built a cairn since we had all missed the flagging on
the way up. The rest of our hike back to the trailhead was quick
and uneventful.

We subsequently returned to the campground for dinner followed by
songs around a wonderful campfire to cap off a successful and enjoyable
day in the mountains.

Sunshine illuminates Ghost Rider Peak.
The bypass trail to Mount Hosmer can be seen in the scree slope at
bottom right.

After reuniting with Simon and Zosia,
the group approaches the summit ridge of Mount Hosmer.